diff --git a/modelopt/torch/distill/plugins/megatron.py b/modelopt/torch/distill/plugins/megatron.py
index c1fa45f6b..7db0a6e14 100644
--- a/modelopt/torch/distill/plugins/megatron.py
+++ b/modelopt/torch/distill/plugins/megatron.py
@@ -92,26 +92,30 @@ def parse_intermediate_entry(entry: tuple[str, ...]) -> tuple[str, str, Callable
         return student_layer, teacher_layer, loss_fn
 
 
-def load_distillation_config(
-    config_path: str | None, student_cfg: "TransformerConfig", teacher_cfg: "TransformerConfig"
+def setup_distillation_config(
+    config_or_path: str | DistillationConfig | None,
+    student_cfg: "TransformerConfig",
+    teacher_cfg: "TransformerConfig",
 ) -> DistillationConfig:
     """Read the distillation yaml config file specified by ``args.export_kd_cfg``.
 
     Args:
-        config_path: Path to user-defined distillation settings yaml file.
+        config_or_path: Path to user-defined distillation settings yaml file, or the incomplete config itself.
             If `None`, uses default logits-only distillation mode for GPT models.
         student_cfg: Model config for student model.
         teacher_cfg: Model config for teacher model.
 
     WARNING: Assumes intermediate hidden sizes are always that found in the model config's ``hidden_size`` attribute.
     """
-    if config_path:
-        with open(config_path) as f:
-            cfg = yaml.safe_load(f)
-        cfg = DistillationConfig(**cfg)
-    else:
+    if config_or_path is None:
         logger.warning("Distillation config not provided. Using default.")
         cfg = DistillationConfig()
+    elif isinstance(config_or_path, DistillationConfig):
+        cfg = config_or_path
+    else:
+        with open(config_or_path) as f:
+            cfg = yaml.safe_load(f)
+        cfg = DistillationConfig(**cfg)
 
     criterion = {}
     if student_cfg.pipeline_model_parallel_size == 1 or parallel_state.is_pipeline_last_stage():